Guest Post: Choosing Where Taxes Go

I would like to start off by saying that I don't think we should have to pay any taxes. I believe it is stealing to take from me and give to someone else.

However, if we are going to have to pay taxes, I should get to choose where my taxes go. For example if I file my taxes and it shows that I owed $20,000, I want to mark a form that says I want 100% to go to the Department of Defense or I want $10,000 to go to the Department of Education and $10,000 to the Department of Transportation. There can also be a standard allocation so if you don't want to pick you can just choose the standard allocation and 5% goes to X Department and 5% to Y Department and so on until you get to 100% and all of the Departments have been given money.

Each Department can only spend what taxpayers allocate to them. Also, the Departments can only use 1% of their budget to advertise for more tax dollars. This is a tricky issue, because I really don't think they should be able to advertise at all but I believe that most people don't know all the Departments or what they do so the Departments might need to get their name out.

I think this will shed light on what people really want and what they don't. For example, lots of people might choose to put money into Defense, but others who believe the wars are wrong won't. This might show the government that people really don't want to spend Zillions of dollars on the Department of the Interior or maybe it will show that they want to spend more. I believe that this would significantly improve what we are getting out of our tax dollars and get rid of programs people don't want.

I have told a couple of my friends about this idea and some people say that the problem is that no one would give money for roads (or something other important item that we need). I believe people will spend money on roads. Maybe the first year they won't because they don't realize how significant they are, but if no highways are built or no repairs are done, people will want to send in extra tax dollars for the roads the next year.

==

Brandy Mae is a Bookkeeper in Arlington, TX.

==

This guest post was submitted in response to my query about how the best way to deal with the current economic situation. This post does not necessarily reflect my thoughts and feelings nor do they represent any views held by Forbes.

Your comments and reactions are, of course, appreciated. Just play nice. I have standards. And I don't want to have to delete you.